An aerial view of the museum and airfield at Duxford. © IWM Duxford
The Director of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford has warned that air shows at the museum could be a thing of the past if a submission to build a service station at the end of the runway is allowed to go ahead.
Local council planning processes have drawn into the open a proposal from local developers who want to build a motorway service station on land owned by the Duke of Westminster’s company Grosvenor Estates. The service station would be built on the M11/A505 junction just yards from Duxford’s historic runway.
If built, it would effectively stop the museum from holding air displays – like the Spitfire 70th Anniversary Airshow due to take place this weekend – on safety grounds and halt a vital income stream for the museum.
Speaking to the 24 Hour Museum, Richard Ashton, IWM Duxford’s Director explained his concerns. “Over a third of my admissions – approximately £1.7m worth – come from the air shows and if something is chucked at the end of the runway it is obviously going to mean we can’t have those air shows anymore.”
Duxford is home to many historic aircraft that still take to the skies. © IWM Duxford
“There have been previous applications, but they have never before shown on a map the area they want to build on, which is right at the end of the runway. The key here is that as yet, there is no specific plan in place to build the service station, but we believe the whole of point of Duxford is its dynamism, variety and its heritage and that’s what we have to protect.” added Mr Ashton.
It was on the airfield in 1938 that the Spitfire first entered service and in 1940 Douglas Bader was stationed at Duxford with No 19 Squadron.
South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Local Development Plan sets out the rules for future planning and building in the district over the next ten years. An interest in the M11 site was acquired by a development company in the early 1990s and the company now routinely promotes the site every time the Council reviews its plans for the Duxford area. A similar service station proposal has been rejected several times, most recently in January 2002.
Keith Miles, planning officer for South Cambridgeshire Council said: “This issue has come up again because we are reviewing our plans for the district – and when this happens all the planning consultants look through their files and lodge objections.”
Scramble! WWII Spitfire pilots from RAF Duxford leap into action. Courtesy Imperial War Museum
"We have said no in the past because the motorway service station would be on land of distinction and because it adjoins the Cambridge green belt. I expect we would win an appeal on that alone but now the IWM has gone public with their concerns we would have an even stronger case to oppose the proposal.”
But staff at the museum believe there is no room for complacency and Mr Ashton has vowed to rigorously defend Duxford against any threats to what it has become known for – its world famous air shows.
“I’ve a feeling it was rushed through arbitrarily by the agents of Grosvenor Estates,” said Mr Ashton, “but my own view is that we have to be very rigorous about anything that may affect the museum."
"All I can do is comment on what comes into the public domain. We are not complacent about it; we are a very tactile museum here. It's all about touch, smell and hear and anything that would threaten this we have to stand up against.”
